Thursday, August 23, 2012

#22 Tugspotting

THE LOOP IS DONE ... but we're not. We are back in familiar territory, New England, and
heading to our home port of Camden, Maine. Landlubbers and mariners
agree: these waters are salty and scenic. But while landlubbers
call the coast of southern New England, from New York to Cape Cod
“the shore,” or “the ocean,” or “the sound,” mariners
have a different set of names: Long Island Sound, Fishers Island
Sound, Block Island Sound, Rhode Island Sound, Buzzard's Bay, and
Nantucket Sound.

Beach
lovers savor the fun of high and low tides. Mariners take them with a
grain of salt. Tides mean currents of two kinds: ebb and flood. And
in each of these aforementioned bodies of water, you have to pay
attention to the direction of the currents to make maximum headway.
Go against the flow, and it's, well, … slow going.

The Race off Fishers Island

And beyond that,
there are tricky little spots where the rules don't apply, but only
for some periods during the ebb and flood. These spots have
terrifying names, like “the Race” and “the Pollock Rip.”

Hit
it right, and it's “Yee haw, ride 'em cowboy.” You just gotta
know when to go.

But,
there are aids, like the Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book. This
handy tome publishes the tide and current tables for the entire east
coast. It even has charts and diagrams for the anomalies. See how
easy and confusing it can be?

"Calm" as" like a lake"

These
past few days have been very calm and we have timed our cruising to
ride the currents most of the time. Of course, they reverse direction
every 5-1/2 hours, but we seem to get through.

We
stopped in Newport and felt like the sublime among the ridiculous.
The next morning we had a hard time getting Sally W out of the
harbor.

She spotted Wallace Foss and insisted we take a closer look.
It was love at first sight.

Wallace
is the real deal, a 65-foot tug built in Tacoma in 1897.

In 1920 he
became the first tug of the Foss family of working boats. For 52
years he dutifully towed barges laden with sand, gravel, and
petroleum in the Pacific Northwest.

He retired from active duty in
1972 and took up head-turning.

Fortunately
for Sally, Wallace now stays in Newport. Guess we'll be back next
year. Sigh!

Distant cousin

One
of the goals on this trip has been to seek out sister tugs along the
route.

We hit the jackpot in Lake Champlain.

On our return trip down
the Hudson, we found Bodacious had shred her shrinkwrap from our June
siting, and was in the water in Kingston. So we decided to see if our
luck would hold along the coast.

Yes! Hal and June Findlay
welcomed us to the dock in Cos Cob, CT alongside Le Papa. But that's
not all. The designer of our tugs, Jim Backus, who just happens to
live nearby, joined the party.

It
was fascinating to hear Jim talk about the project. Less than a month
after he hung out his shingle in Seattle, he was approached by Loren
Hart, owner of Lord Nelson Yachts. It was the early 80s and Loren was
selling sailboats. He sensed a burgeoning market for trawlers and
wanted to offer something different, a pleasure tug. So Jim went to
work, and created the 37-foot Lord Nelson Victory Tug. Seventy-five
tugs were built in Taiwan between 1983 and 1988, where teak and labor
were rather inexpensive.

Jim
says it's the most successful design of his career. Judging by the
fact that today, all but one tug is accounted for, it a rather strong
validation.

Moving
along the Massachusetts coast, Sally W couldn't resist stopping in
New Bedford. Good call. Neptune was waiting as we passed through the
hurricane barrier.

The two beat it to the dock in Fairhaven.
Neptune's handlers are John and Ellen Isaksen, part of a community of
Norwegian immigrant fishing families. They are a colorful couple. The
coffepot is always full and conversation non-stop.

Certainly the
highlight was a feast of Ellen's Georges Bank Sea Scallops, which she
prepares using a method quite different from those of us who think we
know how to cook seafood.

Put
the scallops in a shallow baking dish. Top with a mixture of crushed
Ritz Crackers, melted butter, lemon juice, cooking sherry and
Parmesan cheese. Here's the twist: bake at 325 degrees for 25-30
minutes. No kidding! And they are delicious!

We
left the Isaksens with a plan to time the passage through the Cape
Cod Canal with a favorable current. “Favorable” turned out to be
an understatement. With our trusty Cummins 100 horsepower
turbo-diesel engine and full-displacement hull, we can normally
cruise our 22,000 pound boat at 7.5 knots, or 8.6 miles per hour.

This day, we topped 12 knots, or almost 14 mph!

The
passage was so successful that we changed course in Cape Cod Bay and
headed to Manchester-by-the-Sea, north of Boston. Even though the
waters resembled bathtub conditions, this made it a long day; ten
hours underway, and 78 nautical miles. But we knew it would put us in
a good position for meeting up with family later in the week.

Our
bored and cranky moods changed to surprise and elation as we entered
the harbor and spotted one of our tugs. Huh? Who would this be? It
was Dick Salter on Messing About. Turns out this is his home port
where he's had a mooring since 1965!

We were surprised to find him
here, thinking he was cruising Maine waters and preparing to head
south for the winter. But, plans had changed temporarily, and he came
aboard for an evening of catching up. And, oh yes, we finished off
the Isaksen scallops. Thanks, Ellen.

1 comment:

i'm enjoying reading of your continuing adventures. 12 kts in sally w!! looking up all the siblings and cousins . . . cool. but seeing what wallace foss got in newport for a life-well-lived . . . i'm now a believer in a life-hereafter!!!